Playlouder - Music is the Network

The 1^st track announces their presence with a silly keyboard fanfare and from the off it’s clear that whatever you may be expecting from them, Those Dancing Days are here to enjoy themselves.

The rumbling drums of ‘Falling in Fall’ and Linnea’s husky voice immediately showcase the two major strengths of the band, and following on into ‘I Know Where You Live’ we’re well into the cutesy throwback charm that has got a lot of people hot under the collar in anticipation of ‘In Our Space Hero Suits’, the debut album from these five teenage Swedes.

“I will search for you / I will make you the best mixtape in the recorder”, threatens the lead singer, a sultry Wolfmother-lookalike, and you can be in little doubt that it’ll include the likes of The Supremes, Blondie and Belle and Sebastian. That sort of thing. No Rick Wakeman. No Keep of Kalessin. No Boris.

The singles to date, particularly ‘Run Run’ and ‘Hitten’, have already established their ability to write wonderful pop hits, which tread the well-worn border between obscure profundity and utter drivel: see “The sky’s way bigger than I ever thought it could be / I really can’t see where it ends”, (‘Run run’), and “I find a pair of broken glasses / and suddenly I can see,” (‘Home Sweet Home’).

The interplay of the organ, the jangly guitars, bass, everything… is simply perfect on ‘Hitten’ , (so named because it means ‘the hit’ in Swedish, apparently), and regularly approaches it elsewhere, but hardly ever really gets there.

There’s many a moment where the silliness is in danger of engulfing the quality of the songs and somehow the maturity striven for in the retro sound and the soulfulness of Linnea’s practiced vocals is suddenly dripped through a filter of daft twee. ‘Actionman’ is a case in point. It’s at times like this that the sound seems a little forced and a little too studied – something there’s not the occasion to worry about on the stronger songs, like their eponymous theme. ('Those Dancing Days' - also a previous single.)

The harmonies are occasionally weak, too. ‘Shuffle’ is one such track, where the drumming is the only really formidable ingredient and, as is sometimes the case live, threatens to drown out the rest of the band. Admittedly, though, the mixing is good enough to provide the balance that is so difficult to achieve outside of the studio.

It’s a bit hit-and-miss over the course of the album, but it ends well with ‘Space Hero Suits’, a number that combines their most euphoric and daft ingredients over a decidedly Postal Service-inspired backing. It’s not a bad album, but if you’re expecting to be utterly blown away by Those Dancing Days, you’re more likely to get that from the press hyperbole than the music.

They’re a great singles band, but to my ears they don’t promise much more as yet.

What nobody wants to admit is that the main reason they are receiving so much adoring coverage (see recent Artrocker mag) is that plenty of guys want to get in their knickers. In that, they’re not as different from other girl groups as you’d imagine, or perhaps hope.